Monday, August 16, 2004

Definitions

I was trying to look up some references to a more historical perspective of what Conservatives believe. Unfortunately, pretty much everything out there is too inflammatory for me to take seriously, and I don't want to spend the time to parse through the garbage to find the meat of the rants. So, when I found A Conservative Primer, I was a little intrigued. It lays out, in four postulates, five mandates, and seven principals, what Conservatives do and do not believe.

Here's my question to non-liberal readers (Tony, Paul, others?), what do you think of this primer and in what areas is it particularly right / wrong?

And, can anyone find a similar tract for Liberals so we can review it too?

3 comments:

While I consider myself more of a libertarian than a conservative, I do have some neo-conservative leanings. With that in mind, I'm not a huge fan of this primer.

Take the four postulates, for example. I outright reject two of them (God and original sin). Of the five mandates, I have serious issue with their take on two (life and marriage). But in a bit of philosophical irony, I largely concur with their seven principles.

Person issues aside, I think this is a very American-centric view of conservatism. My undestanding is that the conservative ideologies in other countries of the anglosphere (e.g. UK, Australia) are not near as wrapped up in religion as the one here. Keep in mind that I've not spent a lot of time out of the US and so this is based on heresay.

I don't like the primer either, for pretty much the same reasons. It would be slightly better to label it a "Social Conservative Primer." Although some social conservatives are more about not changing things too quickly, or even rolling things back to the way they used to be.

There are also plenty of fiscal and libertarian conservatives, for whom conservativism is more about limiting the size and scope of the government, because we believe the best way to screw something up is for the government to get its hands in it. Not everybody takes this idea to its extreme conclusion.